Education and Capacity Development
Freshwater is vital for human prosperity; yet humankind’s efforts to provide clean water and sanitation for all is falling behind, as the indicators of Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 6 clearly show.
The lack of training and relevant skill sets delays the adoption of new technologies for water treatment, sanitation and integrated river basin management, among others – which, in turn, leads to wasteful use of water, avoidable contamination of freshwater resources, and inappropriate levels of access to safe and clean water.
While the gap between technical needs and available capacity may be widening, it is even more acute in educational undertakings aimed at enhancing legal, policy and institutional frameworks to support them.
Capacity-building needs in Pacific Island countries
A significant push for increasing water sector capacities will be required to achieve SDG 6 targets in the Pacific. Only 60% of Pacific Islanders have access to basic drinking water and a mere 33% to basic sanitation, with the latter being the lowest rate recorded in the world (UNICEF, 2022). In addition to various governance, poor policy, legislation and ownership issues, a substantial gap in human capacity is also reported.
Due to a lack of human capacity in water resource management, existing facilities are not operationally optimized, and an estimated 1,000 out of 8,500 employees in the sector require training on a yearly basis. This finding illustrates the human and financial resource constraints faced by the Pacific Island countries. A perception survey carried out in the Nadi catchment in Fiji found that Pacific Islanders employ traditional community-based approaches to manage water resources. With further training and the right tools, community managers can strengthen existing water resource management (Wilson et al., 2022).